Attending a wedding is like being handed a licence to act like a twat. Oh how I laughed when I sobered up and realised I'd nicked most of the plates and cutlery from the posh hotel lunch and those vague memories of stealthily exiting like a cat-burglar had in fact involved falling out of the hotel, knives and forks clattering onto the steps.

Just remembered
The only time I've been moved to tears by a bridal procession. I attended a wedding where all the bridesmaids were wearing backless dresses. The eldest of them had a tattoo covering an entire scapula, of a cartoon Satan raising his middle finger with "FUCK YOU" printed below in a Gothic font.
(browserstill relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Wed 5 Nov 2014, 10:53,
6 replies)

Always the bridesmaid
I was once appointed Chief of Bridesmaid Operations of Honor or whatever the fuck menas most important person after the bride and groom at a wedding (best man can fuck right off). Now, I wasn't in chagre of the rings or keeping the Vicar sober but I did have one vital responsibility (apparently) that I failed in miserably. 'Keep the bride presentable'

Now, I ask you, is it my fault that, with ten minutes to go till kick off, the bride developed a rampant case of the shits? Would that we had a disabled toilet to hand with the requisite space and,er, propping-stuff-up poles. But no, the archaic country church the happy couple chose provided merely a tall shoebox space that threatened the occupancy of a single bridal bumcheek, let alone the complete arse and metric fuckton of unecessary lace that was enough to spare blushes in another dimension.

And, again, is it my fault that said Bride was born without the necessary Mr Fantastic arms to do the post-pebble-dashing duty? NO. It was left to me and a Crystal Maze worthy assault course of porcelain and lace with a shit-encrusted 'jewel' to ensure the bride wasn't walking up the aisle with the leftovers of her own generous 'aisle' flecked all over her lacy derriere like a rejected Stone Roses album cover. I failed and Bride of Frankenshite was born.
(Ms Shenanigansput something interesting here later, Mon 17 Nov 2014, 15:15,
11 replies)

Not thinking
About 4 years ago, during the usual wet but warm English summer, a good friend of mine was getting married back in our home village. There was about a group of 8 of us who met up the night before for a gentle beer or two. We were all happily off to bed at about midnight as we were meeting at 11am in the local for pre-arranged dutch courage before the show began at 12.

We all arrive at the local and welcomed by the landlord that used to serve us as lads. We were all suited and booted, the groom and best man in matching suit. After a few pints, we all headed towards the hotel staging the wedding across the local park.

There's a few lads warming up for a game of football, and one smacks the ball over in our direction. The groom, about 25m away, runs up and smashes it; it flies past the keeper into the top corner.

This on its own means nothing. The fact that he then runs to the corner flag in a moment of joy, jumps, and slides on his knees to celebrate.

In his wedding suit. His light grey wedding suit with trousers that are covered in mud and soaked through. 10 minutes before he gets married.

No-one noticed the groom was wearing trousers about 4 sizes too big for him, but there were a few comments about the best man wearing shirt, jacket and shorts.
(The Kitchen Sink, Wed 5 Nov 2014, 18:09,
2 replies)

So Near So Far
I have my dutch friend Adriaan to thank for the most bizarre wedding I've ever attended. I'd known him since he and his family moved from a town called Zegwaart (which always stuck in my head as the running gag when he said where he was from was to repeat "Say Whaaat?" every time, we had a right laugh etc) to the sunny Midlands in the 80s.

It wasn't due to any strange Dutch wedding traditions but thanks to a combination of mildy bracing (fucking torrential) black country weather and a rather shoddy Church roof. As guests scurried into the churchyard under umbrelllas and jacket collars they were met with the sight a sodden and embarrassed man of the cloth full of apologies. A night of hammering chubby rain had taken its toll on the underfunded roof so, er, sorry act of God etc, etc rain check?

Whilst inconvenient to us locals it was doubly so for the travelling Dutch contingent. So in the spirit of "the show must go on" the dripping wedding party made their way to the nearest fully-roofed building to continue the proceedings. So it came to be that the words were spoken, the bride kissed and confetti flung in the hastily reorganised cafe of the local supermarket. Cheering and clapping I turned to see the Groom's mother weeping happily, saying to me "It's so beautiful, reminds me so much of my wedding day". "Oh" I said "did you get wed in Spar too?"
(Xavloves PhillieJoe, Tue 4 Nov 2014, 10:47,
10 replies)

I got married last year. I can totally recommend marrying a Sikh, the food was great and I got to grow a beard and arrive on a horse dressed like a Maharaja. And I got to wear a sword.
The sword is the coolest thing ever, we used it to cut the cake and now it lives under the coffee table. When I was in the indian wedding shop looking at the swords in the cabinet I asked the man if I could look at a particular sword that caught my eye. It was magnificent, with a bronze handle shaped like a lions head and a red velvet scabbard with red swarovski crystals. He said "That sword is just for display, nobody has ever been able to take it out of its scabbard". I said I would like to see it anyway, and then easily pulled it out from the scabbard. Everyone in the shop was completely awed and amazed cos clearly I'm like the Indian King Arthur now or something. The man was so impressed that he gave me 10% off the sword and half price on the special pointy shoes.
(2 Can ChunderWord to your mums, I came to prod bums, Tue 4 Nov 2014, 0:51,
9 replies)

Danse macabre
The worst wedding story I ever came across happened not to me, but to friends of friends. During the 80s this couple were medics in a war-torn African state (really not sure which one) and saw some pretty harrowing stuff on a regular basis.

They had successfully treated the infant son of one of the local chiefs of something that could have become quite serious and, as a thank-you, were invited to a wedding in his village a month or so later. It was certainly a big deal to be invited and they were quite looking forward to going. They had been assured that all trouble had receded from the locality and they would have safe passage to and from the village, which was a fair distance away.

The original plan had been to make the half-day journey on the eve of the wedding but circumstances at their clinic forced them to delay their departure until the day of the ceremony itself. They set off before dawn with four bodyguards and were not even half way to their destination when they heard the muffled sound of a huge explosion and saw, in the distance, a thick plume of black smoke begin to climb its way into the sky, where it ominously seemed to hang without movement for a very long time.

They had no idea what had happened, or where it had happened except that it was ahead of them, but the road they were on went through a mix of open country and jungle and, as far as they knew, only really went to the village they were headed for. It didn't look good.

And so it proved. When they arrived, several hours later, they were greeted by the most appalling carnage you can imagine. They never found out what had caused the initial explosion. There was all sorts of faction fighting at the time, but the chief they were visiting had a solid reputation for diplomacy within the country and had managed to keep his people out of trouble. But whether it had been a bomb or a mortar attack, the explosion had happened in the most populous area of the village and had caused maximum damage.

The worst, however, was yet to some. As if the explosion itself hadn't killed enough people, the perpetrators, who had been concealed in the surrounding jungle, had then systematically gone through the village and hacked almost every man, woman and child to death. Not just by a couple of machete blows, but by severing each limb and head from the torso. The body count was bad enough, but trying to assess numbers from the body parts that littered the whole village must have been truly horrendous.

But this was their job and it was all they could do to set to work. There were no survivors from those who had been attacked, but some villagers had managed to flee into the surrounding jungle and hide from their assailants.

The medics then had to try and reassemble the bodies. They knew that tribal custom considered it paramount for the dead to be buried complete, even if the body parts were separated, and buried within a distinct (and short) timeframe. All that night and all the next day, through the heat and the swarms of flies that settled on every piece of flesh available, they put the villagers back together as best they could.

But sadly, their best efforts weren't enough. They had radioed for help, which had come in the form of several truckloads of soldiers and several more truckloads of cheap wooden coffins, which were to be used to bury the dead.

And no matter how they tried, they still had body parts left over – and not even a matching number. Nor did they have enough coffins for the number of bodies they ought to have had. As the hour approached for the mass burials and the remaining villagers, plus those from friendly neighbouring villages, gathered for a much more macabre ceremony than the one they had planned to attend, the medics realised that they simply could not complete the task they had undertaken.

And with a degree of desperate and exhausted resignation (unsurprising, as they had had very little sleep) they placed all the remaining heads into one coffin, crammed the remaining torsos into another, and the legs and arms into the last two, nailing down the lids and hoping that no-one would ever find out.

They almost didn’t - until the pallbearers carrying the coffin tripped on route to the grave, sending it crashing to the ground. It burst open and the degree of consternation caused by the sight of a boxful of betrainered limbs spilling across the hallowed earth of the village burial ground forced the medics to flee for safety and also very nearly caused an international incident.

And so, despite their best efforts, they were forced to admit – you should never put all your legs in one casket.
(zebideedoodahlikes florence but prefers venice, Sat 8 Nov 2014, 5:35,
18 replies)

At my cousin's wedding, my uncle put a largish amount of money behind the bar so that everyone could have a good time
A couple of lads chanced across the reception at the local golf club (where, being pissed, I'd already taken one of the stupid little electric carts for a joyride around the course) and had noticed that no-one appeared to be paying for their drinks, so they thought they'd have a bit of that.

Now, there are ways and means of doing this. If you happen to crash a wedding's free bar, you probably won't trip anyone's radar by ordering a couple of pints of lager and a packet of crisps. Hell, the proud father would probably be happy to buy a couple of beers as long as you toast the bride with them. Not these chancers. They ordered a couple of quadruple vodkas with coke each, plus a selection of alcopops, not realising that the man standing next to them at the bar was the man who was paying.

All it took was a tiny shake of his head to the barman and our intrepid heroes found themselves being charged about £90 for the round. "But we thought it was a free bar!" one of them protested. "It is for the wedding guests," replied the barman. "Don't want them now," they said and started to back away from the bar, only to bump into my uncle and my other cousin, the bride's brother. At this point, the smarter of the two produced a debit card.

However, the bar was cash only so while one of them stayed behind under the watchful eye of my extended family, the other had to get a taxi back into town so he could go to a cashpoint and withdraw the money and then pay for the taxi back to the golf club where his mate and their now flat and warm drinks were waiting.

Last of the Summer Wine:
It was their wedding night. Compo had waited for this night for a long time. He was all nervous energy. He glanced over to Nora who was sweeping the floor."Come to bed," he said. "I suppose you want to consummate our marriage?" she replied. She studied him. She realised that resisting any longer was futile. She dropped the broom and sat beside him on the bed. Compo ran his fingers through Nora's greasy locks. "By 'eck you're gorgeous," he uttered into her ear. "Do me up me ginnel," she whispered back. Compo lifted up Nora's stained skirt and started to roll down her stockings. "What you doing? Just pull down t'britches. My legs are freezin'," she cried. As Compo pulled down her wind sail sized knickers, he whipped out his old boy, introduced it into her 'ginnel,' and started thrusting."Christ. I'm already flaggin' and I've haven't even busted me nut yet," whined Compo.

Pikeys
I once went to the wedding of a good friend who was getting married to a real scumbag: I never liked him and didn't really understand what she (a genuinely lovely person) saw in him. The marriage didn't last very long after it turned out he had actually started cheating on her before the big day.

Even so, he was a class above his family who were, how can I put it ... 'of Irish descent'. It started with his best man being too drunk to give a speech, and then the kitty behind the bar was destroyed in less than 45 mins in the most undignified manner imaginable. When they were told they had to start paying for drinks, they threatened the bar staff with violence. The DJ was threatened with his face being cut if he didn't continuously play their fucking diddly-dee bog wog music all night, to which they got more boisterous until the police were called and they thankfully dispersed.

i was the bridesmaid for evie, my oldest friend from school, a couple of years ago
she and her husband are both a bit scatty. when i arrived at the church for the rehearsal, they were late. she'd had her toe bitten by a dachshund and had to go for stitches/shots. meanwhile the groom, who never wears suits, had no idea that he needed cufflinks for all the men's shirts, and was on an emergency dash to buy 8 pairs of cufflinks. and the best man had broken down on the m6 and was being towed towards us very slowly.

we finally made it down the aisle, so i was standing behind her, her dad and the husband. the vicar started to drone the words. after a couple of minutes, evie asked where her bit was. when we looked, the vicar had absent-mindedly clasped her husband-to-be's hand with her dad's, and they were just standing there bemusedly holding hands in front of evie whilst the vicar said the vows.

meanwhile i had concerns about the church floor. it had a very ornate metal grate all down the centre of the aisle. i knew that i had to juggle 2 small children, a bouquet, a rather unchristian-deep-cut dress, the bride's veil and stiletto heels down that thing. i asked if i could walk along the side of it.

"no problem," the lying vicar twat said. "we cover it up with a red carpet on the day."

of course it turned out the red carpet was actually red tissue paper. as i turned around at the top of the aisle to sit down after taking the bride's bouquet, my heel pierced it, caught in the grate, and i stumbled in front of the whole congregation. the dress yanked down to lower than anyone - especially my dad and brothers - wanted to see, and i so so so nearly yelled, "FUCK!!!" in a house of god as i thought i was going to faceplant on the stone floor.

luckily i caught myself, and sat down with no more than a wrenched ankle, but of course everyone except the bride had seen it :( :( :(
(rachelswipewith a fork, Tue 4 Nov 2014, 9:02,
14 replies)

One, two, three, four
As a sometime church organist I've seen/heard(/inflicted) my fair share of wedding music horrors.

I was once asked to accompany a trumpeter who would be playing "the Ave Maria" during the signing of the registers. Which Ave Maria? "Errrr..." There's two which are commonly chosen. There's the Bach/Gounod, and the Schubert. "Oh, it's the Bach." Sure? "Yes. Definitely the Bach."

Fine. Trumpeter goes off and learns the Bach.

Come the morning of the wedding, and the bride's mother hears the trumpeter playing the Bach. "That's nice, what is it?" "It's the Ave Maria for the signing of the registers." "Oh, no! That's not how it goes. We want the one that goes [starts warbling] Aaaaaaaaaa-ve Ma-riiiiiiiiii" etc.

Oh, you mean the Schubert.

Go home. Print off sheet music for the Schubert. Give to trumpeter. Trumpeter is bricking it at this point.

The wedding was three hours later. The trumpeter had been practising for three hours and had learned pretty much all the tune. Unfortunately he had, somehow, failed to spot that the piece is in 4/4 and was labouring under the misapprehension that it was in 3/4.

On the one hand, it's probably the only wedding I've played for where the guests have actually listened to the music during the registers. Sadly this wasn't due to the quality of the performance but more because they were pissing themselves at me shouting "ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!" at the poor trumpeter. Ah well.
(ChaRleyTroniCis invincible with his chips and cheese, Fri 14 Nov 2014, 17:55,
9 replies)

We went to a wedding in Spain, as the bride was Spanish.
It was all a very nice, very middle class affair - a lovely country setting in the late afternoon, followed by a short trip to a lovely hotel for the breakfast, which was held around the luxurious pool, and entirely candlelit.

The father of the bride spoke no English at all, and so his speech was translated by his eldest son, line for line. It was a masterclass in such a setting - short, heartfelt; bordering on the emotional, and a good joke to close.

Then to the Best Man.

I've been Best Man a couple of times - I know how it goes: you're generally young, you're generally nervous, and you're generally not very funny, but everyone supports you because everyone's nice. So have a whisky before you go on, and get it done with.

This guy - this guy had had a bottle.

He actually, properly staggered and swayed up to the microphone.

There were a couple of gasps - he dropped his cards, turned around and knocked over a wine bottle to crash on the floor. "Iss a ... where the ... Paul what did I ... ?" he mumbled

Everyone stared in horror, but "No no!" I comforted my table, "This is part of it - he'll do this for a couple of moments, and then he'll crack in with an excellent joke - this is good stuff!"

Oh no.

Oh no.

This guy was actually that trashed. Absolutely trashed. He referred to the bride's 'baby hole'. He told a story about when she was mensturating. He told a story that seemed to involve him "Showing her my dick."

After a few minutes, the groom interrupted him, saying "Haha! I've, er ... I've got Graham something to thank him, er ... " to which several tables hectored with "YER! A TAXI!"

Sadly his speech didn't seem to make the final cut of the video, as if it had, I would have ordered a copy, if only to show to the prospective and some very nervous Best Men I've met over the years since, to tell them "If you can do it better than this guy, you're doing OK."
(Je suis un vagabondis an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Tue 11 Nov 2014, 17:04,
Reply)

Big flat gypsy wedding*
On my way to the local shopping precinct when I was about 15, I could see in the distance what looked like a long line of dwarves in the distance. Couldn't work out what the fuck it might be until I got closer and realised it was a line of about thirty people sat along the low perimeter wall of a pub at the top of the road, most of whom were male and clutching pints of Guinness. All of them were suited and booted in the awkward way of people who generally associate such gear with either job interviews or court appearances - in that part of the world at that time, nearly always the latter. And from the bright white dress of the central figure, it was a wedding.

If that wasn't enough to make me nervous, I could hear as I approached accents that identified them as travellers, or tinkers, as they were usually referred to.

Now this wasn't necessarily a bad thing in itself, but local wisdom was that wherever tinkers gathered, a fight was never far away And the likelihood of this seemed to be reinforced by the increasingly raised voices I could hear coming from their direction.

In fact, it was the allegedly happy couple who were already falling out. She was shrieking like a banshee by the time I got level with them, most of it unintelligible (apart from the liberal use of the word fockin') until she finally pulled the ring from her finger and hurled it at the groom, screaming "OI NEVVER WANTED TO FOCKIN' MARRY YEZ IN DE FURST PLACE!" And stormed off into the pub.

He then hurled himself across the lap of the figure next to him - who, it turned out, was his mother (although you'd never have guessed from her size and shape), and shouted in the most agonising of tones 'AAAH, MAMMY - SHE DOZZEN'T FOCKIN' LOVE ME ANY MORE!" And then proceeded to sob louder than any man has a right to do in a public place.

While the sitting line of Guinness swillers had observed all this in silence, they then started to move and so did I - I knew what was coming next.

I read in the paper the next day that they wrecked the pub and most of them got carted off to the nick. Can't believe the pub even let them in - most pubs would avoid travellers like the plague.

Never ask a friend to do the video.
We did, and what we got when we watched it, was rather telling and somehow perhaps more in keeping than it should have been. You'd think it would be easy to read the red light as recording wouldn't you? So we have a lovely collection of the following type interviews:"Would you mind saying a few words for the happy couple please?""Yeah, of course, let me just finish this comp wine and..."*click*"Hiya, I'm just doing some video for Mr and Mrs Meach, would you like to say some words?""Oh crap, do we have to? Well ok, hang on..."*click*

You get the picture by now I'm sure. We do, we have a whole tape of slightly drunk and embarrassed people preparing themselves to make up some platitude to give us to remember the day. Nothing of the first dance, the cake, or the speeches. But somehow it seems to have captured the mood quite accurately!
(Blind MeachCautiously optimistic, Tue 4 Nov 2014, 14:28,
2 replies)

Goldfish
A friend of mine married a Taiwanese girl, in America. They wanted the room where they were marrying to have various symbolic objects around, mostly related to her background. This included red material draped everywhere (red is a lucky colour), hundreds of candles all around the place, and a live goldfish in a bowl on each of the main tables. I and some mates were asked to help set the room up. Draping red cloth around was easy. Placing the 200 or so candles was also easy, if time consuming. However the goldfish were a real challenge.

They were kept in an aquarium in my friend's apartment. He'd bought 10 large glass fish bowls. Now I thought it would be simplest to pop the fish in a couple of big water-filled plastic bags and drive to the place, then fill up the bowls with water and drop the fish in. However one of the other blokes helping was a biologist, who told us that we couldn't use tap water, and the water had to be at the right temperature, or the fish would die. So we ended up scooping water out of the aquarium into the fish bowls, catching the fish, placing them in the bowls, and then taking a taxi down the road to the place. Of course it was impossible to keep the water in the bowls so by the time the first taxi arrived we all had soaking wet trousers and the fish were looking very nervous. We had to make 2 journeys to transport all the fish: the second time we thought of putting clingfilm over the top of the bowls. This saved our trousers but the fish were no less traumatised by the journey.

So when we had all the fish in the right place we had to top up the bowls with water anyway, as most of it had sloshed out onto our legs. And yes the biologist was right - either the coldness or the tap-i-ness of the water, or maybe the traumatic taxi ride, something caused half the fish to die. So by the time the bride walked in half the fish were floating motionless in the bowls. We prioritised the live fish to the happy couple's table, and those of their immediate families.

I'd love to say that the draped red material caught fire on the candles and distracted everyone from the dead fish, but it wasn't to be. So we sat through the ceremony and the speeches with dead fish on the tables. The bride and groom only realised what was going when they walked round all the tables afterwards, greeting their guests. Apparently for goldfish to be lucky in Taiwanese culture they have to be alive.
(Smaleis stuffed, Fri 14 Nov 2014, 15:14,
Reply)

Dancing...
...it's not that I dislike the *concept*, just the practise of me doing it. It feels entirely unnatural, uncomfortable, and I've no idea what I'm meant to be doing or (crucially) why. Which is why I always forgo the clubbing portion of any friends birthdays or outings, and just go to the pre-drinks/dinner bit whenever possible. The only near exception being at gigs, where I would gleefully jump and bounce around in the moshpit, but that's not really *dancing*.

My non-dancing life went pretty happily for many, many years, in spite of the protestations and disappointment of friends who wanted me to come to their horrid, noisy clubs. Until, that is, a friends wedding. Where, for the first time, I would be surrounded by my dance-loving friends, AND a dance floor. Oh, the glee on their faces - these three girls in particular. The squeeing, the excitement, that *finally*, after all these years, they would get to see me dance. The anticipation and the threats (I say "threats" - but that was how it was taken rather than given) that I would be pulled onto the dance floor were built up to nobel-prize/oscar-award-winning status & importance. I weakly protested, saying that I've tried dancing but it feels weird and I've not idea what I'm doing, but the coo-ing reassurances of "you'll be fine" "just let yourself go!", "have fun and dance like nobodies watching" etc. came thick and fast.

There was to be no escape. "Fine" I thought. I'll go up for one dance just to shut them up, then I can head back to the buffet, bar and smokers corner to eat, chat, and crack wise.

The big night came. 3 songs after the first dance, the aforementioned girls, with beaming smiles yet eerily-threatening expressions came to my table, grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me onto the dance floor. My brow furrowed with fear and discomfort, but I was encouraged and cajoled. Surrounded by 60% friends/acquaintances, 40% strangers, I started dancing. Well... I say dancing. I started moving my limbs in a manner I thought was rhythmical (In fact, it was *perfectly* rhythmical - I'm a drummer, dammit. Rhythm is the one bit I can do).

15 seconds. Literally. That's how long I lasted before their worried, almost horrified faces made it clear they could take no more. Almost in unison, 2 of them touched me on the arm, pointed off the dance floor and, shaking their heads slightly, said "it's ok, you can go".

I thanked them, let out a little a sigh of relief and went back to the bar. But it still hurts a bit that I'm even worse a dancer than I thought I would be.

When the ring wouldnt go on...
"use lube" was shouted from the back - much to my amusement
(SkUG>_O i got a couple of stitches in my eyeball... ow, Sun 9 Nov 2014, 23:14,
Reply)

Living in Redditch for a brief period
these were inevitable.

Wedding number 1. I was an onlooker as the "reception" was basically taking place in my local. Teenage groom, bride in her forties, I swear her (school age) children had tattoos, words were obviously exchanged at some point between the two families, it all kicked off. A guy I vaguely knew looked down (we were on the balcony) at the chaos. "Yossers" he said, quite rightly, he was later convicted of murdering his wife with a sawn-off.

wedding number 2. I worked with both M (female) and her bloke D, M was a bright young lady with great norks, D worked in the packing department, a complete piss-head who'd always miss at least one day a month due to drinking, in the mornings you could smell the cider on his breath. Everyone knew M could do better for herself, but she'd been going out with D since the year dot and probably thought she could improve him. Wrong.

At the wedding, D was obviously pissed, towards the end of the evening he came up to me. "You've always fancied M, haven't you?" he slurred. I did my best to make a non-committal comment, in case I was going to get a beating, yes I often wondered what those norks looked like, but had never taken it further.

"Well, I tell you what" D continued, "why don't you take her home and fuck her tonight, I've got my eye on the bridesmaid."

Tempting though this was, I declined. The marriage lasted six months, several years later D was hit by a car and killed as he staggered home from the pub.

Oh, I fucked up someones wedding once. Kind of.
Our neighbour in Brazil's daughter married an English guy. We were invited to the wedding as we were friends of the Mum, and (I suspect more importantly to them) both spoke English and Portuguese and were handy translators.

Before we went, my wife says to me 'Actually, they already got married in England, in a registry office last month. This is just for the Brazilians to celebrate it'.

So, mingling around, ended up talking to the groom and his (English) parents who had traveled over for the wedding.

'So Phil' I said. 'Nice of you to do all this for the Brazilians. Do they know you already got married in the UK last month?'.

A schoolfriend of mine joined the Merchant Navy and did very well for himself.
He came home a week or so before Christmas, probably two years later. We went out on Christmas Eve and he pulled - nice girl, but she seemed to be nothing special in either looks or personality.

He obviously disagreed because as soon as it was legally possible (I'm sure it was the first week in January) I found myself in a small, cold and very depressing room in Altrincham registry office for their wedding.

As you might imagine, this wasn't lacking in controversy. His mother refused to go at all, his brother flew over from Australia especially for the occasion, so there was just him and four of Oggie's schoolfriends (including me), plus bride and groom. I don't remember any of her friends or family at all, although she must have had someone there.

We waited for her to arrive and it was like a bad sitcom. Even after she turned up the room still resounded with pleas from all there, from the kindly and well-intentioned 'It's not too late to change your mind' to the rather more forthright 'You must be fucking mad - turn round and walk out now.'

He spent half the ceremony telling those assembled to shut the fuck up - in those very same words. Twice the woman registrar stopped and asked them if they were sure they wanted to go ahead - he insisted they did and were consequently married. I remember thinking that the registrar looked less perturbed by all this than she ought to have done and then realised that this probably wasn't an unfamiliar sight to her.

He got them a really nice flat in Didsbury, furnished it throughout and went back to sea three weeks later. You can probably guess what happened. Or didnt.

I didn't see or hear from Oggie for eighteen months, then one day he phoned out of the blue and we met for a drink. He was (literally - he was on his way to the airport) about to emigrate to Oz and was just saying goodbye. I think I might have been the only person he called, I'm not sure. I asked what had happened - God knows why, it was fairly obvious. He just shook his head and looked sad. Poor Oggie. He just wanted to be loved and whatever he was getting on board ship plainly wasn't doing it for him.

I only ever spoke to him one more time, about a year later, when he came home for his mother's funeral. He loved Oz, he seemed very happy and I was really pleased for him.

That was thirty-five years ago and I've never spoken to him since. But every time I go to a wedding, or very often when the word is even mentioned I'm once again stood in a cold and funereal registry office, listening to heated exchanges on the merits of whirlwind romances and quickie weddings, and I wonder how Oggie's getting on these days. Don't suppose I'll ever know, now.
(zebideedoodahlikes florence but prefers venice, Thu 6 Nov 2014, 1:09,
11 replies)

After the sausaging I received, the night before,
I had to stand during my own wedding breakfast.
(monster munch- it's cheeseburgers, all the way down, Wed 5 Nov 2014, 19:47,
2 replies)

"No", I said to the American guest, and the bride's 80 year old mother
"Double fisting is not when you have two drinks at the same time. It's actually when you have two fists firmly shoved up your anus"

I remember being very pleased that I'd been able to correct this misconception.
(rofl harris, Tue 4 Nov 2014, 11:28,
9 replies)

I think I speak for us all when I say
'I hope Dr Skagra dies in a fire'.
(dozers, do fuck offur a nob m8, Thu 20 Nov 2014, 19:20,
4 replies)

Canadian wedding
We're in the church of a very small town (population about 150), the guests are seated in the pews, the groom and his guys are standing at the front and pretending that they didn't get wasted and have a massive punch-up the night before, everything's set for the bride's entrance (f'narr f'narr). Seated at the piano is an old lady who begins playing Pachelbel's Canon in D, as is traditional, and the bridesmaids start filing in.

Then, as the last note of the Canon fades away, the old lady flicks the page on her sheet music and begins to play a second tune and an obese aunt in very casual clothes stands up. And I'm thinking, "Hang on, I know th- oh god, they're not going to- oh, they are". The aunt begins singing:

"Look into my heart, you will see what you mean to me..."

They didn't just do the first verse and chorus either, they did the whole song, even the "There's no love like your love" middle eight and everything. I spent the entire time trying not to betray any emotion on my face, while inside I was a whirlwind of horror, hilarity and not a little emotion - it was kind of beautiful, after all.

It didn't last long
I was about to split up with a bloke as the relationship was becoming domestic and passionless, then he did the whole bended knee thing and proposed to me. I got swept up in the romance of it.

At the reception, my dad delivered on my request for "an embarrassing speech", but not in the affectionately piss-taking, baby photos-type way I'd imagined. Instead, he listed all the times I'd been arrested as a teenager, for petty crime and public order offences, as I felt like sinking into the floor and the groom's very middle class and ambitious family all awkwardly stared at their table.

Two weeks later, I found out my husband owed thousands of pounds in unpaid tax, was massively in debt and had lied to me about his previous relationships. I moved out soon after and filed for divorce as soon as I could.